Language Death

Language Death
When a language becomes extinct it is seen as a loss to heritage and poses a risk, to the diversity of languages. The
disappearance of a language results, in the disappearance of knowledge, beliefs and customs that are intricately woven
into its fabric. There are generally two categories when it comes to the causes: natural/environmental decline or
population loss and political or military displacement, from the land. Let’s examine into these causes further in detail.
A. Natural/Environmental Decline or Loss of Population
When a community experiences a decrease, in population or faces environmental challenges the gradual decline of
language often occurs. This leads to a decrease, in the number of speakers. Eventually leads to the extinction of the
language.
 Displacement due to climate change- climate change is also endangering the survival of many of the world’s
most at-risk linguistic populations. As these communities get displaced due to rising sea levels and climatic
changes that disrupt their agricultural and fishing industries, it becomes inevitably more difficult for small
languages to remain viable as its speakers scatter around the globe and are forced to assimilate to local cultures.
And even if certain communities manage to stay in place, there’s still a sense of “you can’t go home again” when
your local environment is becoming unrecognizable to you. Many indigenous communities look for cues in their
environment to know when to plant, hunt, and harvest. When natural cycles are disrupted, so is the linguistic
meaning and context built around them.
One example: the shadbush, a small North American tree, is named such because shad, a type of fish, are often
spawning in the rivers when the shadbush flowers. That is no longer the case because along with many other
plants, it is flowering earlier in the year.
 Urbanization- Another issue is urbanization, which is when people move from the countryside to the city. The
issue is that the majority of the time, a big, fat language is used in the metropolis. You spoke in an intriguing and
foreign language, no matter where you were. The only persons you can utilize that language with once you are in
the city are those who just so happened to be traveling with you or some individuals who arrived earlier than
you. There could possibly be a community. Perhaps you have a few buddies. But you'll have to master that
complex tongue. The more common languages that are used in that setting tend to be promoted more by
urbanization than the lesser-spoken languages. If enough individuals are persuaded to relocate to a major city,
the languages that are not spoken there face extinction.
Vanishing Voices, a book by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine, is a very wise work on language death. Its
central claim is that in order to prevent people from leaving their homelands and moving to urban areas, where
their native languages are likely to have died out, we must create the right conditions for them to do so. The only
way to preserve their language is to keep people on their land.
B. Political, Military Dispossession of the Land
Language extinction brought on by political and military land dispossession is frequently the result of intentional
measures taken by outside forces to impose their languages and repress the languages of local or indigenous groups.
 Colonization- Many factors can contribute to the eradication of a language. One culprit of language
extinction is colonization. When an empire rises, it brings with it its own culture and lexicon. To survive,
indigenous people must assimilate. In the old days, that meant abandoning the mother tongue entirely. In
the modern day, it means people must learn the language of the dominant culture.
In addition, in the modern period (c. 1500 CE–present; following the rise of colonialism), language death has
typically resulted from the process of cultural assimilation leading to language shift and the gradual
abandonment of a native language in favor of a foreign lingua franca, largely those of European countries.
Take the state of Hawaii for example: the South Pacific paradise was a sovereign nation with its own culture
and its own language until the monarchy was overthrown in 1893. In the decades following, use of the
Hawaiian language was expressly forbidden by law. By the 1980s, fewer than 50 people under the age of 18
in the America’s newest state spoke the language.
 Disaster or war- Sometimes languages die out quickly. This can happen when small communities of speakers
are wiped out by disasters or war.
In El Salvador, for example, speakers of the indigenous Lenca and Cacaopera abandoned their languages to
avoid being identified as Indians after a massacre in 1932 in which Salvadoran troops killed tens of thousands
of mostly indigenous peasants to suppress an uprising.

Language Death

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language Death

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language Death

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language Death

A. Natural/Environmental Decline or Loss of Population

B. Political, Military Dispossession of the Land

You might also like